| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: whether the solemn bell that once called its flock to worship had
become as mute as her own dead heart. She did not hear the whirr
of the great machine inside the tent, as it plunged through space
with its girl occupant. These things were a part of the daily
routine, part of the strange, vague dream through which she must
stumble for the rest of her life.
Jim watched her in silence. Her face was turned from him. She
had forgotten his presence.
"Star gazin', Poll?" he asked at length, dreading to disturb her
revery.
"I guess I was, Jim." She turned to him with a little, forced
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in the Rhetoric.
Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of
both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues.
From the mention of 'Hippias' in the singular by Aristotle, we may perhaps
infer that he was unacquainted with a second dialogue bearing the same
name. Moreover, the mere existence of a Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of
a First and Second Alcibiades, does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon
both of them. Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias
does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who
was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent.
The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem.,
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